Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
To Boil Sugar to Caramel
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the syrup
Break the sugar into a small copper or brass pan.
Add the spring water and set the pan on the fire.
When it boils, skim it clean.
Boil and finish
Let it boil quickly until it reaches the 'Crack' stage.
To test, dip a teaspoon into the sugar and drop it into a pan of cold water; if it hardens, it is ready.
Squeeze in the lemon juice and let it boil for one more minute.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Forms the caramel's structure and sweetness, and browns as it heats further.
- Spring water
- Dissolves the sugar so it can heat evenly before it thickens.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that helps keep the sugar from crystallising.
The step that matters
Boiling to the 'Crack' stage. Sugar temperature rises quickly near the end, so a short extra boil can turn the caramel dark and bitter. Testing by dropping a bit into cold water shows when the sugar has reached the right hardness.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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